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Climate and environmental protest is being criminalised and repressed around the world. The criminalisation of such protest has received a lot of attention in certain countries, including the UK and Australia. But there have not been any attempts to capture the global trend – until now.

We recently published a report, with three University of Bristol colleagues, which shows this repression is indeed a global trend – and that it is becoming more difficult around the world to stand up for climate justice.

This criminalisation and repression spans the global north and south, and includes more and less democratic countries. It does, however, take different forms.

Our report distinguishes between climate and environmental protest. The latter are campaigns against specific environmentally destructive projects – most commonly oil and gas extraction and pipelines, deforestation, dam building and mining. They take place all around the world.

Climate protests are aimed at mitigating climate change by decreasing carbon emissions, and tend to make bigger policy or political demands (“cut global emissions now” rather than “don’t build this power plant”). They often take place in urban areas and are more common in the global north.

Four ways to repress activism

The intensifying criminalisation and repression is taking four main forms.

1. Anti-protest laws are introduced

Anti-protest laws may give the police more powers to stop protest, introduce new criminal offences, increase sentence lengths for existing offences, or give policy impunity when harming protesters. In the 14 countries we looked at, we found 22 such pieces of legislation introduced since 2019.

2. Protest is criminalised through prosecution and courts

This can mean using laws against climate and environmental activists that were designed to be used against terrorism or organised crime. In Germany, members of Letzte Generation (Last Generation), a direct action group in the mould of Just Stop Oil, were charged in May 2024 with “forming a criminal organisation”. This section of the law is typically used against mafia organisations and had never been applied to a non-violent group.

In the Philippines, anti-terrorism laws have been used against environmentalists who have found themselves unable to return to their home islands.

A climate activist in Munich, Germany: ‘I am a terrorist! Because I support my children and grandchildren and the last generation in their commitment to a future worth surviving.’
Zuma / Alamy

Criminalising protest can also mean lowering the threshold for prosecution, preventing climate activists from mentioning climate change in court, and changing other court processes to make guilty verdicts more likely. Another example is injunctions that can be taken out by corporations against activists who protest against them.

3. Harsher policing

This stretches from stopping and searching to surveillance, arrests, violence, infiltration and threatening activists. The policing of activists is carried out not just by state actors like police and armed forces, but also private actors including private security, organised crime and corporations.

In Germany, regional police have been accused of collaborating with an energy giant (and its private fire brigade) to evict coal mine protesters, while private security was used extensively in policing anti-mining activists in Peru.

4. Killings and disappearances

Lastly, in the most extreme cases, environmental activists are murdered. This is an extension of the trend for harsher policing, as it typically follows threats by the same range of actors. We used data from the NGO Global Witness to show this is increasingly common in countries including Brazil, Philippines, Peru and India. In Brazil, most murders are carried out by organised crime groups while in Peru, it is the police force.

Protests are increasing

To look more closely at the global picture of climate and environmental protest – and the repression of it – we used the Armed Conflicts Location Event database. This showed us that climate protests increased dramatically in 2018-2019 and have not declined since. They make up on average about 4% of all protest in the 81 countries that had more than 1,000 protests recorded in the 2012-2023 period:

Climate protests increased sharply in the late 2010s in the 14 countries studied. (Data is smoothed over five months; number of protests is per country per month.)
Berglund et al; Data: ACLED, CC BY-SA

This second graph shows that environmental protest has increased more gradually:

Environmental protests in the same 14 countries.
Data: ACLED, CC BY-SA

We used this data to see what kind of repression activists face. By looking for keywords in the reporting of protest events, we found that on average 3% of climate and environmental protests face police violence, and 6.3% involve arrests. But behind these averages are large differences in the nature of protest and its policing.

A combination of the presence of protest groups like Extinction Rebellion, who often actively seek arrests, and police forces that are more likely to make arrests, mean countries such as Australia and the UK have very high levels of arrest. Some 20% of Australian climate and environmental protests involve arrests, against 17% in the UK – with the highest in the world being Canada on 27%.

Meanwhile, police violence is high in countries such as Peru (6.5%) and Uganda (4.4%). France stands out as a European country with relatively high levels of police violence (3.2%) and low levels of arrests (also 3.2%).

In summary, while criminalisation and repression does not look the same across the world, there are remarkable similarities. It is increasing in a lot of countries, it involves both state and corporate actors, and it takes many forms.

This repression is taking place in a context where states are not taking adequate action on climate change. By criminalising activists, states depoliticise them. This conceals the fact these activists are ultimately right about the state of the climate and environment – and the lack of positive government action in these areas. Läs mer…

Donald Trump’s return to the White House has sparked fears about the future for women’s rights in the US. Trump has a long history of misogyny and has boasted about his role in shaping the court that overturned women’s constitutional right to an abortion in 2022. His victory thus, unsurprisingly, sparked a reaction.

Following November’s election, some American women encouraged each other to delete dating apps, sign up for self-defence classes, and get on birth control. Others drew attention to 4B, a radical feminist movement founded in South Korea that has seen some women refuse to marry, have children, engage in romance, or participate in sexual relationships with men.

The movement, which first came about in the 2010s as a response to the misogyny that is pervasive across South Korean society, went viral on social media in the aftermath of Trump’s election, especially in the US. It takes its name from its four defining tenets: bihon (no marriage), bichulsan (no childbirth), biyeonae (no dating), and bisex (no sex).

Feminist activism in South Korea is not new, but it only gained wide popularity and support over the past decade. In 2016, a woman was killed at a public toilet near the Gangnam subway station in the country’s capital, Seoul, by a stranger who told the police he committed the crime because he had been “belittled by women” many times in the past. The tragic event sparked mass public mourning and prompted backlash against misogyny across the nation.

The #MeToo movement, which has highlighted sexual harassment and abuse around the world, took hold in South Korea the following year. This started with allegations of rape, assault and sexually predatory behaviour against renowned Korean filmmaker Kim Ki-duk and actor Cho Jae-hyeon.

Kim responded to South Korea’s state broadcaster MBC, where the accusations were first made, by saying, “I never tried to satisfy my personal desires using my status as a film director,” and claimed that he only engaged in “consensual sexual relationships”. Cho pledged his innocence, saying: “The things I see in news are so different from truth.” And, in January 2021, the Seoul Central District Court ruled in his favour.

But allegations quickly spread to the political arena. Ahn Hee-jung, the governor of the western province of South Chungcheong resigned in 2018 after his secretary publicly accused him of repeatedly raping her. Ahn was sentenced to three-and-a-half years in prison for sexual assault.

The former mayor of Seoul, Park Won-soon, was then found dead in 2020 after an apparent suicide one day after his secretary filed a complaint against him with the police over sexual harassment. More than 500,000 people signed a petition calling on the government not to use public money for Park’s five-day state funeral.

Sexual violence in South Korea is not exclusive to influential figures. Thousands of people in South Korea – the vast majority of whom are female – have fallen victim to illicit filming in public places over the past decade. Between 2011 and 2017, there was a fivefold increase in the number of people identified by the police for illicit filming, from 1,300 to 5,300. South Korea’s former president, Moon Jae-in, said in May 2024 that spy cams had become a “part of daily life”.

Many of these clips are subsequently shared on adult websites. A report by international non-governmental organisation Human Rights Watch in 2021 found that the anguish caused by this crime was so severe that it led to depression and suicidal thoughts among the affected women and girls. It was out of this deep-seated misogyny that South Korea’s 4B movement was born.

#MeToo protest march in Seoul, South Korea in August 2018.
Socialtruant / Shutterstock

From hopelessness to resentment

The 4B movement took root at a time when South Korea was undergoing its own reckoning with gender violence and inequality. But, in my position as a researcher of online political participation and activism, I see it as also entwined in a broader societal movement in which a generation of South Koreans in their 20s and 30s have given up on numerous things. This includes not only dating, marriage and childbearing, but also employment, home ownership, and, in general, hope for their future.

This sense of hopelessness can be traced to the aftermath of the Asian financial crisis in 1997, when economic reforms were implemented to increase the flexibility of the labour market. Since then, a growing number of South Korean citizens have found themselves unable to find secure employment, which has led a growing number of young people to give up entirely on searching for a job.

These feelings of hopelessness have manifested in gender conflict online. Many young men see themselves as victims of the achievements of South Korea’s feminist movements over the past two decades, particularly the abolition of the country’s military service bonus point system in 1999. This system granted men who had completed their mandatory military service an additional 3% to 5% in public official recruitment exams.

South Korean politicians have weaponised this growing resentment, and have used sexism and misogyny for electoral gain. South Korea’s now suspended current president, Yoon Suk Yeol, won the presidential election in 2022, in part thanks to his efforts to consolidate the support of aggrieved young male voters. During his campaign, Yoon promised to abolish the ministry of gender equality and family, accusing it of treating men like “potential sex criminals”.

There are certainly aspects of this trend of giving up that are specific to South Korea. But it also resonates across many advanced industrialised societies that are becoming increasingly unequal. Societal conflicts are being compounded by growing economic divides in an increasingly polarised world. Läs mer…

While most agree that HBO’s hit fantasy show House of the Dragon (HotD) might be an interesting dive into the chaos of the Middle Ages, less has been said about its lessons for the contemporary business world.

Though modern laws make sibling rivalries much more civilised (siblings don’t usually kill each other, nor do they have dragons), there are still many similarities between throne-claiming and today’s family battles over business leadership – especially when multiple siblings are involved.

As a lecturer in entrepreneurship and strategy, I use the show – a prequel to Game of Thrones that sees siblings fighting to inherit their father’s throne – to illustrate the complications in family business succession.

When succession of leadership in a business becomes an issue, it is important for the family to be clear about their direction. Important, and often difficult, conversations around which legacy, as well as the methods to achieve it, need to be agreed by all family members.

The issue of succession is known to contribute to tension in famous family businesses, as seen with the Murdoch family. As one of the most prevalent forms of business worldwide, family businesses could certainly try to avoid conflict – and, in HotD’s case, a kingdom dispute – if successions were handled more carefully.

In the show, King Viserys I Targaryen, played by Paddy Considine, is not a bad ruler, but when it came to succession planning there was so much more he could have done. By the time he had announced his daughter Rhaenyra (played by Emma D’Arcy) as heir, it was perceived that this decision was taken out of desperation, due to there being no male heir.

Succession planning.

Family business leaders typically have a stronger sense of ownership of the firm than non-family employees, which sometimes leads them to keep hold of leadership. While this is human nature, it is important for family business leaders, like kings are to their kingdoms, to remember their responsibility to the businesses’ prosperity and stability and to have a clear Plan B.

The accession of an heir in a family business often sparks wide discussions, like in the case of Alexandre Arnault of luxury goods conglomerate LVMH. He was recently appointed at just 32 years old as deputy CEO of the group’s wines and spirits business Moët Hennessy. In the case of the heir Rhaenyra in HotD, her half-brother challenged her legitimacy to the throne, with strong support from stakeholders, (that is to say, the lords in the show) who believed that a son would make a more legitimate heir.

In a family business, successors often need to legitimise their position and get the senior managers (like the lords in HotD), employees, and other stakeholders like customers (the “smallfolk” in the show), to accept the transition.

While there are different stages of succession, research has shown that it extends far beyond the business arena to affect the lives of family members, with conflict spilling into other areas.

In a family where everyone gets on, a succession can bind the next generations together – to the point where they might even quit jobs with other companies to carry on the family dream. But HotD portrays a dysfunctional family and intense sibling rivalry, as is also the case in another TV show, Succession.

In HotD, the king’s first son Aegon (played by Tom Glynn-Carney) was groomed to be fearful and even hateful of his half-sister Rhaenyra and her children. The dysfunctional family life went on to haunt the children when succession discussions arose.

The Targaryen family in HotD was divided by goals – with Viserys’ and Rheanyra’s side aiming to continue the Targaryen reign, and the king’s second wife Alicent (played by Olivia Cooke) and Aegon’s side trying to maintain primogeniture (where succession goes to the first-born child) and purity in the bloodline. Competing goals are often paradoxical and can be unsettling for stakeholders in family businesses.

The role of women

In the show, there are instances where the roles and desires of female characters are marginalised. The role of women in family businesses has also traditionally been overlooked.

But female family business members are often more important than their titles in the business suggest, where their role in the family in maintaining traditions, values and harmony are sometimes more central.

HotD demonstrates how the sometimes quieter female voices can influence the succession through the use of a variety of strong female characters. This is a helpful resource to illustrate how females might influence strategic decisions in family businesses.

Women’s influence in the family and its business can sometimes go unrecognised. This could be particularly tricky in situations where multiple siblings (and even wives) are in competition, like the Majid Al Futtaim (MAF) retail and leisure empire, where ten family members had claims on the estate.

Sibling rivalries and the challenge of female legitimacy in family business succession take centre-stage in HotD. The complex dynamics between heirs vying for power and the struggles faced by women in leadership roles echo the real-world tensions that often unfold in family-owned businesses.

Viewers may be immersed in the sweeping political dramas of Westeros, but at the same time the series offers important contemporary lessons in managing family legacies, power struggles and succession planning. Läs mer…

For parents, carers and teachers, it’s often tempting to base our thinking on a child’s development around what we understand as “normal”. Much of the time we do this without thinking, describing a child as “doing well” in one subject and “behind” in another.

Whenever we make this sort of comparison, we have some sort of mental benchmark or yardstick in our head: for example, a toddler should be able to climb on furniture by age two. Increasingly, child development researchers are arguing that the same thing happens in child development research — the study of how behaviours and abilities such as language develop.

Many of the studies that claim to research child development either implicitly, or explicitly, claim that their findings are universal.

There could be many reasons for this. Sometimes there’s a temptation to oversell conclusions, sometimes it might be the way findings are interpreted by readers or the media. The upshot is that what’s been found in one group of children is then taken as the standard — the yardstick against which future research is compared.

Most of the research into how children develop comes from wealthier, western countries, in particular the US, the UK, the Netherlands, Germany and France. Chances are, if you’ve heard of milestones in child development, they were developed in one of these countries.

This is so much so that it can be challenging to do basic research on child development in developing countries, as peers and reviewers will ask for or demand comparisons to western populations to put findings from these regions in context. Of course without realising it, these peers and reviewers have set up western children as a norm.

Most of the existing academic research on child development comes from western countries.
Olesia Bilkei/Shutterstock

But is it fair to make these comparisons? One of the tricky things about researching child development is that it occurs within a cultural and social context it can’t be removed from. But this context is often messy. Differences in physical environment, parenting styles, location, climate and so on all interact to shape how children grow.

Besides these differences, there is individual variation as well. These could be, for instance, curiosity, shyness and neurodiversity, which can all frame how a child shapes their own learning environment.

Take for example the field of motor development in infancy – the study of
how children learn to move. Many parents in particular might be familiar with charts showing when they can expect their child to sit, crawl, stand and run. The existence of these charts make it seem pretty universal, and often a child’s motor development is judged accordingly.

This makes sense. Early research was preoccupied with finding out what was normal, and it makes sense to try to support children who might be at risk of falling behind. The timing and order investigated back then led to the norms and scales we still use today.

Is something like motor development timing universal? It’s easy to imagine that it might be. When there are no physical or cognitive barriers we all learn to sit and stand, so on the surface it seems fair to say this could be.

But it turns out that the context that children develop in plays a huge role even
in something as seemingly universal as this. In countries and
cultures where babies routinely receive firm massages from caregivers, such as in Jamaica, motor development is accelerated. It’s clear that a norm developed in one culture might not translate well to another.

Beyond norms

It’s clear to see that the problems highlighted above are not unique to motor development. In areas like language development or social development the cultural component is even more compelling.

There is simply no way of understanding these elements of child development without also understanding the context in which they take place. Every child is developing within a context and however normal our own culture feels to us, there is no objective context-free norm that we can compare other children to. That is, to say, we should embrace the mess.

If we think of normal child development as being something that just happens, researchers miss out on understanding the dynamics of development itself. But worse, educators and caregivers might not realise development is something we can act upon, and miss an opportunity to enact change.

An important part of seeing child development as being intertwined with culture is that it doesn’t just mean collecting data from other cultures, but involving local communities and research perspectives. Understanding communities means listening to them, empowering them and making space for them to have a voice.

Moving beyond a western-centric understanding of child development won’t just benefit researchers and lead to more accurate science, but hopefully benefit everyone working with children around the world. Läs mer…

What does a baby know about right and wrong? A foundational finding in moral psychology suggested that even infants have a moral sense, preferring “helpers” over “hinderers” before uttering their first word. Now, nearly 20 years later, a study that tried to replicate these findings calls this result into question.

In the original study, Kiley Hamlin and her colleagues showed a puppet show to six- and ten-month-old babies. During the show, the babies would see a character — which was really just a shape with googly eyes — struggling to reach the top of a hill.

Next, a new character would either help the struggling individual reach the top (acting as a “helper”) or push the character back down to the bottom of the hill (acting as a “hinderer”).

By gauging babies’ behaviour — specifically, watching how their eyes moved during the show and whether they preferred to hold a specific character after the show ended — it seemed that the infants had basic moral preferences. Indeed, in the first study, 88% of the ten-month-olds – and 100% of the six-month-olds – chose to reach for the helper.

Kiley Hamlin explains the helper-hinderer experiment.

But psychology, and developmental psychology, in particular, is no stranger to replicability concerns (when it is difficult or impossible to reproduce the results of a scientific study). After all, the original study sampled only a few dozen infants.

This isn’t the fault of the researchers; it’s just really hard to collect data from babies. But what if it was possible to run the same study again — with say, hundreds or even thousands of babies? Would researchers find the same result?

This is the chief aim of ManyBabies, a consortium of developmental psychologists spread around the world. By combining resources across individual research labs, ManyBabies can robustly test findings in developmental science, like Hamlin’s original “helper-hinderer” effect. And as of last month, the results are in.

With a final sample of 567 babies, tested in 37 research labs across five continents, babies did not show evidence of an early-emerging moral sense. Across the ages tested, babies showed no preference for the helpful character.

Blank slate?

John Locke, an English philosopher argued that the human mind is a “tabula rasa” or “blank slate”. Everything that we, as humans, know comes from our experiences in the world. So should people take the most recent ManyBabies result as evidence of this? My answer, however underwhelming, is “perhaps”.

This is not the first attempted replication of the helper-hinderer effect (nor is it the first “failure to replicate”). In fact, there have been a number of successful replications. It can be hard to know what underlies differences in results. For example, a previous “failure” seemed to come from the characters’ “googly eyes” not being oriented the right way.

The ManyBabies experiment also had an important change in how the “show” was presented to infants. Rather than a puppet show performed live to baby participants, researchers instead presented a video with digital versions of the characters. This approach has its strengths. For example, ensuring that the exact same presentation occurs across every trial, in every lab. But it could also shift how babies engage with the show and its characters.

I appreciated the recent remarks made by Michael Frank, founder of the ManyBabies consortium, on social network BlueSky: “Some people will jump to the interpretation that [the results of ManyBabies] shows that the original finding was incorrect (and hence that the other replications were incorrect as well, and the earlier non-replications were right). This [is] one possibility – but we shouldn’t be so quick to jump to conclusions.”

Rather, we can take this finding for exactly what it is: a well-executed large investigation (senior-authored by Kiley Hamlin herself) of the hypothesis that infants prefer helpers over hinderers. In this instance, the hypothesis was not supported.

This could be because, underneath it all, Locke was right. Perhaps the babies tested hadn’t had enough time in the world to learn “right from wrong”, so they wouldn’t make any distinction between a helpful character and a harmful one. Or perhaps there’s something more complicated going on. Only more science, with many, many more babies, will tell us.

At the very least, a question mark now hangs over one of the most famous experiments in developmental psychology. Läs mer…

A new Wallace and Gromit adventure, Vengeance Most Fowl (2024), premieres on BBC One and Netflix this Christmas Day. It’s been nearly 20 years since the last feature film about Yorkshire’s favourite eccentric inventor and his above-intelligent pet dog, The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005).

Aardman’s latest Christmas instalment marks the reappearance of Feathers McGraw, the mysterious and silent penguin villain from The Wrong Trousers (1993). It also represents the latest outing for the Bristol-based company’s signature stop-motion “claymation” style – which is both a symbol of the studio’s enduring relationship to craft, and a vital element of Aardman’s international identity as an animation powerhouse.

A new era of artificial intelligence is threatening to transform the boundaries of what we understand as art. So it is significant that one of this year’s most highly anticipated festive films celebrates the skill and spirit of handmade animation.

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Aardman was founded in 1972. Over the last 50 years, the studio has cultivated a durable and worldwide reputation as a pioneer of animation as a handmade, craft-based art form.

Both before and after its feature-film debut, Chicken Run (2000), the studio’s stop-motion approach was refined across an extensive range of animated projects and commissions. These included short films like Creature Comforts (1990), the first Aardman production to win an Academy Award, as well as an array of television idents, music videos and advertising campaigns.

Such has been Aardman’s longstanding connection to claymation that when the Newplast company shut down in March 2023, sparking rumours of a shortage of its famous modelling clay, the studio issued a statement denying it was running out of materials, while assuring fans it would find a new supplier for future projects.

The trailer for Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl.

Aardman’s animated productions have been a staple of Christmas film and television since Wallace and Gromit creator Nick Park’s 30-minute short The Wrong Trousers debuted on Boxing Day 1993.

So much so, in fact, that Aardman proclaims that it is “proud to be synonymous with Christmas”. The many television specials featuring old and new Aardman characters include the 30-minute Netflix Christmas shorts Shaun The Sheep: A Flight Before Christmas (2021) and Robin Robin (2021), as well as multiple “cracking” Christmas advertising campaigns.

This Christmas season, that’s included the decorating of London’s Battersea power station with Aardman characters, and a collection of specially commissioned Christmas idents exclusively for the BBC.

Aardman goes digital

Despite a defining investment in the creative potential of claymation, the studio has occasionally dipped a toe into the the world of digital technology. A brief foray into computer-animated filmmaking in the early 2000s with Flushed Away (2006) and Arthur Christmas (2011) marked an ultimately short-lived creative partnership with DreamWorks Animation and Sony Pictures.

While Aardman’s involvement with these renowned Hollywood companies pushed the studio away from its house style and ushered in a new kind of big-screen humour, in design at least, these films retained their quintessential Aardman “look”. But though these characters appeared firmly from the Aardman stable (particularly in their recognisably exaggerated smiles), their animated perfection demonstrated the pristine visuals increasingly afforded by sophisticated computer graphics.

Feathers McGraw returns in Vengeance Most Fowl.
Courtesy of Netflix

Clearly, much like Wallace, Aardman animators aren’t immune to the thrill of technological innovation. But they have still largely maintained their claymation methods of production, to instil in audiences the many pleasures of doing things by hand.

The glimpse of fingerprints accidentally pressed into the modelling clay, coupled with the jerky movements of their plasticine characters, emphasises that Aardman methods remain far removed from modern technology. Craft and the handmade are therefore as much business strategies as they are aesthetic choices, deployed to sell the Aardman brand around the world.

After a hiatus of almost 20 years, the iminent return of Wallace and Gromit to British screens seems a pointed reflection on the virtues of the handmade, against the acceleration of AI within the film industry.

With Vengeance Most Fowl telling the story of a rogue automatic garden gnome, Aardman is seemingly questioning a future built from computerised (and potentially dangerous) automation. By preserving the artisanal and anchoring its very British charm once again to the hand-crafted, slightly imperfect models that populate these stop-motion animated worlds, it seems that, for Aardman at least, computers are not always what they are cracked up to be. Läs mer…

For some people, loneliness can feel overwhelming, especially during winter, but small steps toward connection can make a significant difference. Research shows that micro conversations with strangers can help improve wellbeing and reduce feelings of loneliness.

This explains why in the UK, the new charity Happy to Chat is trying to encourage people to talk to each other when out and about. In Sweden, a similar scheme – the Say Hi campaign – was also launched in winter 2023 to promote small talks among people in their neighbourhoods.

Most studies on the benefits of talking to strangers have focused on younger people, leaving a big question mark over how older adults experience these everyday interactions. Yet, this is a group that could stand to benefit the most. The World Health Organization estimates that one in four older adults face social isolation, which can seriously affect their health, happiness, and even how long they live.

Our research shows that most older people in the UK have a positive attitude towards the idea of small talk when out and about. They see it as being neighbourly, an act of kindness, a way to brighten someone else’s day. Popular spots for these chats include bright, public spaces, like shopping centres, garden centres, libraries, community events, university campuses, or even while waiting for public transport.

Feeling confident is important; it’s not just about starting a conversation or keeping it going. It’s also about feeling safe and in control. That confidence isn’t the same for everyone, though. Older women, in particular, were more concerned about potential challenges such as personal safety or dealing with an awkward or uncomfortable chat.

A safe and secure environment can make all the difference in their choice of whether to engage in small talk when out and about. So, it is important that we all make an effort in creating a friendly environment, combating loneliness together through small and meaningful conversations. With that in mind, here are five ways to beat loneliness this winter and build those much needed connections.

1. Join the ‘happy to chat’ movement

A simple conversation can go a long way in making both you and others feel more connected. The “happy to chat” initiative in the UK encourages people to sit at designated benches or wear ‘happy to chat’ badges that signal their openness to friendly talks with those passing by. Our research shows that these badges work wonders as ice breakers, making it easier to strike up a conversation. Whether you’re at a park, garden centre, café, or on public transport, a little small talk can brighten your day and build a sense of community.

2. Volunteer for a local charity

Giving back not only benefits others but can also create a sense of purpose and connection. Many organisations seek extra hands during the winter, especially for holiday drives, food banks or programmes supporting older people. Volunteering is a great way to meet like-minded people while spreading warmth and joy.

3. Take part in community activities

From Christmas carol singing to craft workshops and winter walks, your local area is probably buzzing with events this season. Joining in these activities is a natural way to socialise and meet new people. Have a look at your community centre or local general practitioners notice boards. Neighbourhood gatherings or shared hobbies make connecting with others feel effortless and fun.

4. Stay active and embrace the outdoors

Exercise has proven mental health benefits, including reducing feelings of loneliness. Bundle up and take a brisk walk in the park, or join a local fitness class or walking group, where you can enjoy the fresh air while having small talks with others. Outdoor winter activities like ice skating may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but having a visit to seasonal markets can also provide opportunities to interact with others.

5. Reconnect with friends and family

The holiday season is a perfect time to reach out to loved ones or people you may have lost in touch with. But don’t forget that loneliness can be all year around. Drop a postcard to say hello, schedule a call or meet-ups, even if it’s just for a quick coffee. If you can’t meet in person, virtual gatherings can still help you feel connected and cared for.

What is not recommended?

Although pets can provide companionship, they require long-term commitment, time and care. Getting a pet solely to combat loneliness during the winter isn’t a good idea.

Pets are for life, not just for the holiday season, and taking on this responsibility without careful thought can lead to challenges for both you and the animal. Instead, consider alternative ways to connect, like volunteering at an animal shelter or spending time with friends who have pets.

Loneliness can feel overwhelming, especially during winter, but small steps toward connection can make a significant difference. By reaching out to others and engaging in your community, you can transform this season into one of warmth, companionship and joy. Sometimes, all it takes is a simple smile or a friendly conversation to turn someone’s day around – including your own. Läs mer…

20 years have passed since the Aceh tsunami, leaving deep scars on Indonesia, especially for those directly affected. Aceh was also recovering from a three-decade armed conflict between the Free Aceh Movement and the national government

Throughout December 2024, The Conversation Indonesia, in collaboration with academics, is publishing a special edition honouring the 20 years of efforts to rebuild Aceh. We hope this series of articles preserves our collective memory while inspiring reflection on the journey of recovery and peace in the land of ‘Serambi Makkah.’

Off the southern coast of Aceh lies Simeulue, a small island with a powerful story of survival. When the devastating Indian Ocean tsunami killed hundreds of thousands across the region in 2004, only five people died on Simeulue — some say just three.

This remarkable survival was credited to a local wisdom called smong — their term for tsunamis in the Simeulue language — that taught them to read nature’s warning signs and escape to safety.

Passed down through generations since a previous tsunami struck in 1907, smong describes the signs of an upcoming ghostly wave: a strong earthquake and the receding of seawater. This knowledge becomes a survival guide that directs them to move away from the coast immediately or head to higher ground.

Two decades after the 2004 disaster, our research shows that this life-saving knowledge is transforming, reflecting broader social shifts and information and communication technology development. It is no longer told only through nafi-nafi (oral storytelling) but adapting to new channels, from traditional songs to pop music and even into children’s names.

From tradition to transformation

Our study – spanning from 2016 to 2023 and involving interviews with 18 participants – captures how smong evolves over time. Smong, for instance, finds its way to nandong, Simeulue’s traditional songs that now incorporate lyrics about the life-saving local wisdom. A local artist said:

After the 2004 tsunami, we adapted the smong story into nandong. This became a new way to convey the ‘smong’ message, ensuring it remains relevant and easy to remember.

One popular nandong lyric goes:

Linon uwak-uwakmo (The earthquake rocks you like a cradle)

Elaik kedang-kedangmo (Thunder beats like a drum)

Kilek suluh-suluhmo (Lightning flashes like your lamp)

Smong dumek-dumekmo (The tsunami is your bathing water).

Video containing song or ‘nandong’ about ‘smong’

But even as Simeulue’s younger generation embraced modern influences, smong kept up. Local artists began creating pop songs in Devayan, one of the island’s local languages. The catchy tunes brought smong into classrooms, as a 23-year-old local testified:

I first heard a ‘smong’ song at school. The lyrics were simple but clear. They told me exactly what to do if a tsunami came.

A children’s tale telling a stort about ‘smong’

Smong as a symbol of resilience

Today, smong is more than a safety warning; it symbolises the island’s strength and identity. In some families, smong even lives on in names.

One grandmother named her grandson “Putra Smong” (smong’s son) as a tribute, saying

His name reminds us of the wisdom that saved our lives.

The challenge of preservation

Despite its transformation, preserving the smong narrative faces challenges that risk eroding this customary knowledge.

The biggest challenge is the shift in lifestyle and culture among Simeulue’s youth. Today’s younger generation is more familiar with digital technology than oral traditions. A mother said:

In the past, our elders would tell ‘smong’ stories every evening after Maghrib (dusk) prayers. Now, children are too busy with their gadgets.

Globalisation also brings external cultural influences, diverting the attention of Simeulue’s youth from the local heritage. Many young people grow up with limited knowledge of traditions like nafi-nafi.

Another major challenge is the declining use of local languages such as Devayan, Sigulai, and Lekon in daily conversations. Since smong originates from these languages, preserving it relies on their continued use.

Our observation concludes that the transmission of smong narratives remains sporadic. Its spread often depends on individual or small group initiatives and sometimes awaits external interventions.

Without concrete efforts, the smong narrative risks fading and being forgotten by future generations. A local activist stated:

I once proposed building a ‘smong’ monument to remind the younger generation, but the idea has yet to be realised.

Hope for continuity: Bridging tradition and modernity

The elders of Simeulue firmly believe that smong is a heritage that must be safeguarded. An 80-year-old community elder expressed his hope for future generations to keep smong alive.

As long as the ‘smong’ story exists, we will remain safe. But if this story is lost, we will lose our most precious wisdom and treasure.

To keep smong alive, educators and community leaders are looking to the future. Some propose integrating smong into school curriculum, ensuring every child knows its lessons. A teacher said.

‘Smong’ isn’t just a story. It’s a life-saving guide that must be passed on to every generation.

Technology can also be an important means of preserving the native understa. Digital videos, disaster simulations, and interactive storytelling could bring smong to a tech-savvy audience, making it relevant today.

As we hope these approaches will bridge the old tradition with modern needs, smong transformation highlights that it is not just a relic from the past. Its narrative must evolve to adapt to the times, ensuring its treasured knowledge remains alive amid social changes.

In the face of ongoing disaster threats, particularly in Indonesia’s Ring of Fire, smong offers a valuable lesson on how preserving local wisdom can form the foundation for disaster preparedness. Läs mer…

I’ve dedicated my professional life to reading and teaching the English classics. The crucial thing about classics is that they start as cutting-edge literary experiments.

Think about the events that cause classic writers to put pen to paper: the rise and fall of empires, wars, terrorism, revolution, falling in love, homophobia and gay rights, childbirth, plague, enslavement, freedom, rebellion, the wildest places, people’s living rooms.

Like it or not, the whole human world is in these books.

Classics are often not easy reads – but all the books I’ve chosen are, as it happens, page-turners. There’s a richness to them, a depth and sense of perspective that comes from time and history.

My mission is to help new generations of readers learn how great writers have connected with their present, understood their past … and looked into the future.

1. Picnic at Hanging Rock, Joan Lindsay (1967)

Picnic at Hanging Rock must be the worst outdoor dining experience in history. It’s funny, creepy and compelling. The mystery can never be unravelled, but the temptation to do so is irresistible.

The story describes the repercussions within a girl’s boarding school and the surrounding community, when three of the students and a teacher disappear on a Valentine’s Day picnic to a site of natural beauty called – you guessed it – Hanging Rock.

The novel is a biting satire on colonial white Australia, written by a visual artist who was fascinated by a painting in the National Gallery of Victoria called “At the Hanging Rock”. Her literary influences include the colonial classic A Passage to India and Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.

Picnic at Hanging Rock is set at the time of Australian Federation, but published at the time of the 1967 referendum on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander citizenship. First Nations life is the unnamed absence in the novel, which depicts Hanging Rock as mysterious and ancient. It was –  and is – on Woi Wurrung, Djaara and Taungurung lands, in continual use for 10,000 years.

In a final chapter, which was suppressed at publication but now available, Lindsay implies that First Nations time and place have vanquished the colonists.

Best line: “An uneasy silence accompanied the mousse of tongue despite the host’s monologues on rose growing and the outrageous ingratitude of the Boers towards Our Gracious Queen.”

2. Dracula, Bram Stoker (1897)

Such a famous character, but a neglected book. While it’s often sensational and pulpy, Bram Stoker’s wildly original novel is an indelible piece of mythmaking that invented a whole new mode of horror.

Dracula is the story of a young English solicitor, Jonathan Harker, who goes to Transylvania to help a mysterious client: Count Dracula. Harker soon discovers that the count is a malignant monster with supernatural powers and finds himself imprisoned in the castle. The action then shifts to England, where Dracula arrives by boat and begins a spree of terror, sucking the blood of his victims –  including Lucy, the best friend of Harker’s wife, Mina.

The brilliance of the book is closely connected to Stoker’s day job as a theatre manager. He blended the hottest topics of the day — fears of immigration, female sexuality and Darwinism — into a single, haunting story. Some of these topics are still hot: it’s a double marriage plot, organised around the attempt to root out a foreign epidemic that has invaded England, and to send “immigrant culture” back to its roots.

Best line: “I could feel the soft, shivering touch of the lips on the super sensitive skin of my throat, and the hard dents of two sharp teeth, just touching and pausing there. I closed my eyes in languorous ecstasy and waited, waited with beating heart.”

3. Northanger Abbey, Jane Austen (1817)

If she were alive in 2025, Jane Austen would be 250 years old. Northanger Abbey was published a few months after Austen’s death at 41, but the composition of the novel dates back to when she was in her early twenties – and it is perhaps the most exuberantly youthful and autobiographical of her books.

It tells the story of 17-year-old book nerd Catherine Morland, who travels to Bath with a neighbour, falls in love, gains and loses a friend, visits a not-so-spooky stately home and learns that life doesn’t quite work out as her beloved novels would have her believe.

This is also Austen’s most meta novel. She’s thinking about what this new literary form can and can’t do — Northanger Abbey is both a satire on the silliness of gothic fiction and a brilliantly insightful gothic tale.

One of its many secrets is that it’s set in the age of revolutions – American, French and especially Haitian –  and Austen is covertly challenging cliches about British virtue and French corruption. She’s also planting the seeds of her long-term abolitionist beliefs.

Best line: “No one who had ever seen Catherine Morland in her infancy, would have supposed her born to be an heroine.”

4. The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald (1925)

Another birthday! 2025 is the year The Great Gatsby turns 100. It’s a short novel about car crashes, exotic cocktails, wild parties, tawdry affairs and the American Dream gone wrong.

The narrator is a young banker, Nick Carraway, who lives on Long Island next door to the mysterious Jay Gatsby. Gatsby entertains compulsively in his vast, faux-French mansion, secretly still in love with beautiful Daisy Buchanan, whom he met five years earlier and who lives in another large house just across the bay. The Great Gatsby wasn’t a huge success when it was published, but its reputation has grown.

This summer is a great time to ask, a century on, did Fitzgerald put his finger on the issues which still define modern American life, politics and culture? What causes the American dream to die in The Great Gatsby? The overreaching ambition and greed of new money, or the complacency and corruption of old money and privilege? Or is it love and passion?

As the endless stage and screen adaptations show, artists cannot leave this Jazz Age fable alone. Or maybe it’s about the unending variety and abundance of drinks and great clothes.

Best line: “Her face was sad and lovely with bright things in it, bright eyes and a bright passionate mouth, but there was an excitement in her voice that men who had cared for her found difficult to forget: a singing compulsion, a whispered ‘Listen,’ a promise that she had done gay, exciting things just a while since and that there were gay, exciting things hovering in the next hour.”

5. Wide Sargasso Sea, Jean Rhys (1966)

Wide Sargasso Sea is the last novel by Dominican writer Jean Rhys, who composed it in her late 60s and 70s, after a turbulent creative life in the West Indies and England.

The story is an audacious response to Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre. It tells the story of Creole woman Bertha Antoinette Mason, who grows up on a plantation in Jamaica shortly after the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833, which ruined her family.

In Bronte’s Jane Eyre, we glimpse Antoinette (or, the madwoman in the attic) incarcerated in Rochester’s house Thornfield Hall. She appears as a deranged being: “it snatched and growled like some strange wild animal: but it was covered with clothing, and a quantity of dark, grizzled hair, wild as a mane, hid its head and face.” In Wide Sargasso Sea, we see how she came to be married to Rochester and ensconced in his attic – and why she might be deranged.

Wide Sargasso Sea is a book way before its time – and it remains one of the cornerstones in postcolonial literature.

Best line: “Our garden was large and beautiful as that garden in the Bible – the tree of life grew there. But it had gone wild. The paths were overgrown and a smell of dead flowers mixed with the fresh living smell, underneath the tree ferns, tall of forest tree ferns, the light was green.” Läs mer…

Marketing is critical to the success of commercial films, and companies will often spend half as much again on top of the production budget to let people know about a film. But this is usually not the case with the local industry.

Frequently, Australian films will do well enough on the festival circuit to be picked up by a theatrical distributor who spends virtually nothing on marketing – and then pulls the film when it doesn’t prove to be the next Muriel’s Wedding.

This is painfully in the back of my mind as I try to compile a list of my top five Australian films of 2024. Top five? Did I even see five? It turns out I did. Did I miss many? A few, because they never crossed my radar – no posters, no advertising, no social media presence.

Out of the, let’s say ten, Australian films I did manage to see in 2024, this is my top five (which isn’t to say they are, necessarily, five films that I would recommend).

1. Late Night with the Devil

Written and directed by Colin and Cameron Cairnes, Late Night with the Devil is a solid genre film.

The narrative frames the film as found footage. We watch an episode of a late night talk show from Halloween 1977, in which a supposedly possessed girl becomes the centre of the show, unleashing (or not?) various demonic events.

David Dastmalchian is commandingly goofy in the lead as ratings-hungry host Jack Delroy, and the supporting cast provide some nice character touches.

The production design is first rate, with everything we love about 1970s horror cinema – and television culture – recreated in vivid strokes.

Starved of unpretentious and non-didactic cinema, one is tempted to declaim the brilliance of this enjoyable romp. But, at the end of the day – and despite Stephen King’s comment it’s “absolutely brilliant” – it’s just a good horror film, sure to please fans of well-made cinema with a retro bent.

2. Christmess

Though released at select cinemas at the end of 2023, I’m including the well-made (and low budget) Christmess on the list, as it secured a mainstream release in 2024.

The film follows a trio of recovering addicts in a halfway house during the holiday period, centred around once-famous actor Chris (beautifully played by Steve Le Marquand) as he successfully – and unsuccessfully – deals with his demons.

Christmess is sentimental without being overly schmaltzy, the characters are rendered with nuance while still containing a recognisably mythical dimension, and it feels hopeful while still making sense.

Writer-director-producer Heath Davis does exactly what is needed for a low budget film. It is economically but effectively shot in the Sydney suburbs, the writing is razor sharp, and the performances are (mostly) excellent. Films like Christmess give hope independent Australian cinema has life yet.

3. Force of Nature: The Dry 2

Now we’re getting into trickier territory for a top five list. Force of Nature is the sequel to The Dry from 2020, and treads similar ground, with Eric Bana returning as federal police detective Aaron Falk.

This time it’s a mystery surrounding a hiking trip and a disappearing informant.

As with the first film, Force of Nature is an engaging genre film with some arresting moments and effectively handled elements (the cinematography, music, performances are all fine). But it’s also totally forgettable and uninspired, pale in comparison to some of the great variations on the cop-mystery theme of the past.

4. Birdeater

Popular at SXSW, Birdeater makes the list by virtue of its style alone.

What begins as an intriguing look at the horrors of group dynamics when a bunch of youngsters leave the city for a buck’s party quickly fizzles into nothing, the early gestures towards Ted Kotcheff’s masterful Wake in Fright proving little more than hot air.

But it looks and sounds amazing, one of the most stunningly shot Australian films I’ve seen – actually warranting that haphazardly thrown about adjective “cinematic” – and is worth watching for this dimension alone.

5. The Moogai

Some may think writer-director Jon Bell’s The Moogai is an impressive horror film, cleverly integrating a critique of Australian colonisation into a possession story about motherhood and the anxieties of the parent-child relationship.

I found its treatment of a potentially engaging story humdrum and forgettable, the critique of colonisation obvious and uninteresting, and the performances strained.

Unlike Jennifer Kent’s excellent The Babadook, which anchors its allegorical dissection of parenthood to specific and weird horrific moments, The Moogai depends too much on the abstract, on the viewer’s knowledge of events and the world outside the film, and suffers as a work of art for this.

The best of the rest (perhaps)

Before you attack my evident myopia, there were a handful of Australian films released in 2024 I haven’t seen and that look like they might be worthwhile. Don’t blame me, blame the marketers!

Sting, directed by Aussie genre maestro Kiah Roache-Turner, looks like a rousingly trashy monster film (there hasn’t been a good giant spider film for years).

The Rooster, written and directed by actor Mark Leonard Winter, looks like a potentially solid character mystery (and has received great reviews).

In the Room Where He Waits – which looks like a disturbing Repulsion-like thriller about a queer actor losing his marbles in a hotel room – has also received excellent reviews.

And this isn’t to discount the potential mirth of a film like Runt, a sweet-looking kids’ film about a ten-year-old girl and her friendship with a dog.

The biggest Australian film of the year was George Miller’s latest Mad Max endeavour, Furiosa. While some swear by Fury Road, as a long-time fan of the Mad Max films I found it shrill and incomprehensible, a senseless assault on the viewer with little payoff and no dynamism. Well, Furiosa is this, but a little worse.

How can Screen Australia ensure 2025 (well, 2026 now) has a more robust offering of Australian films? Less money invested in American productions, more on Australian films with lower budgets – and more spent on marketing! Läs mer…